The sweeping subpoena was one of three issued to Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, demanding IP usage records and identity information for the holders of more than 100 email accounts, including environmental activists, journalists and attorneys. Chevron’s subpoena sought personal information about every account holder and the IP addresses associated with every login to each account over a nine-year period.

This could allow Chevron to determine the countries, states, cities or even buildings where the account-holders were checking their email so as to “infer the movements of the users over the relevant period and might permit Chevron to makes inferences about some of the user’s professional and personal relationships.”

The court’s logic is that maybe the First Amendment doesn’t apply to these anonymous people, because maybe they aren’t U.S. citizens — because, you know, we don’t know who they are because they are anonymous.

This shouldn’t just give activists pause — it should give us all a little (more!) motivation to protect ourselves and our data. If you are interested in speaking out against multinational energy giants with lots of lawyers, I would suggest checking out this handy digital security guide from Micah Lee at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.